It is known from weighing technology that the weight of the products or objects manufactured in production processes must be ascertained, i.e., that the products must be weighed. In this context, the weighing procedure used should take the shortest time possible, on the one hand, yet the requirements with respect to the accuracy of the weighing result are very high, on the other hand. Especially in the production of tablets and/or capsules, the manufacture takes place at very high throughput rates, with the requirements with respect to the accuracy of the weight of each individual tablet and/or capsule (in general: “object”) at the same time being very high.
DE 198 19 395 C1 discloses an apparatus for weighing hard gelatin capsules in which each separate capsule is transported into and discharged from a weighing area by means of a transport pawl and a blade-type wheel. The degree of design complexity of such an apparatus is very high, and the device is designed especially for specific capsule shapes.
Another apparatus for weighing hard gelatin capsules is known from DE 44 19 488 A1, in which a transfer mechanism is used to transport the products to be weighed into a weighing area where they are dropped onto the weighed support base. A swivel element separates the objects from the transfer mechanism. Again, the design complexity is relatively high, and the means of guiding and/or transporting the capsules are highly dependent on the shape of the capsules.
DE 697 20 886 T1 describes an apparatus for measuring the weight of capsules which comprises, among other things, a sliding transfer mechanism, a weighing mechanism and a discharge mechanism and therefore which also has a complex design and is dependent on the shape of the capsules.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,887,611 discloses a transport mechanism for capsules which are fed to and discharged from a weighing apparatus. Again, the capsules determine the complex design of the apparatus and the strictly format-dependent construction of the apparatus.
JP 3-282221 discloses a weighing mechanism with horizontally disposed conveyor drums for the gravity-determined sorting of weighed products.
EP 0 501 208 B1 describes a weighing apparatus in which a feeding mechanism targetedly feeds the products to be weighed to a weighing position and from there subsequently discharges them.
All apparatuses mentioned above have a high design complexity and do not weigh the individual objects rapidly enough.